Exploring Brazil’s Biodiversity Through a New Project Navigation Structure plus a Feature That Could Save

General
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Hello everyone,

I would like to share a project structure I have been developing to improve the way we explore biodiversity in Brazil using the existing tools of iNaturalist.

The idea started from a simple question:

How can we make it easier for people to discover the incredible biodiversity of such a large and diverse country like Brazil?

Brazil is one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth, with different biomes, ecosystems, landscapes, and thousands of species recorded by the iNaturalist community. However, because of its size, information is often distributed across many different projects, making exploration sometimes difficult for new users.

So I started building a navigation layer connecting projects together.

From isolated projects to a biodiversity network

I created a main project:

Brazil Regions Dashboard

The goal was not to replace existing projects, but to connect them.

The structure works like a biodiversity map:

:globe_showing_americas: Brazil
↳ :herb: Regions
↳ :world_map: States
↳ :seedling: Local areas and environmental projects
↳ :butterfly: Species and observations

The idea is that a user can start from a national overview and gradually explore smaller and more specific biodiversity areas.

Using project descriptions as navigation interfaces

One of the main experiments was using HTML inside project descriptions.

Instead of using descriptions only as text information, I started using them as a navigation interface.

The descriptions contain:

  • links between regional projects;

  • shortcuts to different biodiversity areas;

  • connections between levels of organization;

  • visual navigation elements.

This creates a kind of internal “biodiversity portal” inside iNaturalist, using only the resources already available on the platform.

Project icons as visual badges

Another concept I explored was the use of project icons.

Instead of being only identification images, the icons work like visual badges.

Each project becomes easier to recognize:

:globe_showing_americas: Brazil badge
:herb: Regional badge
:world_map: State badge
:seedling: Local biodiversity badge

This creates a visual language where users can quickly understand where they are and where they can go next.

The idea is similar to an atlas: each area has its own identity but remains connected to the larger biodiversity network.

A different approach to Guides

I also started exploring the Guides feature in a different way.

Besides presenting species, Guides can become thematic biodiversity pages.

For example:

  • important regional species;

  • species of conservation interest;

  • biodiversity highlights;

  • educational content.

The goal is to transform species lists into exploration experiences.

A dedicated conservation and priority species page

One of the extensions of this idea is a page focused on important conservation species.

The objective is not only to create a list, but to help users explore:

  • which species occur in each region;

  • where observations are being made;

  • which ecosystems are represented;

  • how citizen science can contribute to biodiversity knowledge.

A species becomes more than a name in a database — it becomes a connection between people, places, and nature.

Why I created this structure

iNaturalist already has something extremely valuable:

a global community generating biodiversity data every day.

My goal was to create a simpler way to navigate this information.

The database already exists.
The observations already exist.
The communities already exist.

The missing piece was a navigation structure connecting everything together.

Future development

This project is still evolving.

The next steps are to expand connections between:

  • Brazilian biomes;

  • protected areas;

  • local communities;

  • regional biodiversity projects;

  • important species groups.

I hope this approach can inspire other users to create their own navigation systems for countries, regions, cities, or conservation areas.

The idea is simple:

Turn projects into connected doors that allow people to explore biodiversity.

Thank you to everyone in the iNaturalist community who contributes observations, identifications, and knowledge every day.

Together, we are building one of the largest biodiversity records ever created. :seedling:

Project link:

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/brasil-regioes-dashboard

## A Request to the iNaturalist Team

First of all, congratulations to the entire iNaturalist team. I truly appreciate the incredible work involved in maintaining a platform that supports millions of observations and a global community of naturalists.

After spending several weeks trying to solve a specific challenge, I’d like to share one suggestion that I believe could significantly improve project management and integration.

One of the biggest limitations I encountered is that **Project main cannot be populated dynamically using URL parameters or existing species lists**. If this were possible, project covers and guides could stay synchronized automatically, dramatically reducing maintenance while enabling much richer integration between projects.

I tried several approaches:

* Passing Taxon IDs through URL parameters.

* Using `in_list` parameters.

* Testing different URL combinations already supported elsewhere on iNaturalist.

Unfortunately, none of these methods work for Project home.

As we say in Brazil, we don’t give up easily. :blush: Since there wasn’t another option, I manually added every species—one by one. There is currently no bulk import or dynamic synchronization available.

This may seem like a small feature request, but it would unlock a completely new level of project integration. Curators could maintain a single master species list and automatically reuse it across dashboards, regional projects, conservation projects, and many other initiatives, eliminating duplicated work and making projects much easier to maintain over time.

We’re certainly not trying to hack the servers—just hoping to make better use of the excellent infrastructure that already exists. :blush:

Many iNaturalist pages already support URL parameters for observations and species searches. Extending that flexibility to Project Guides would be a tremendous improvement for community-driven projects.

A real example where this functionality would have made an enormous difference:

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/brasil-prioritarias

Please consider adding this capability in a future release. I believe it would benefit not only the projects I’ve been developing in Brazil, but thousands of community projects around the world.

Thank you once again for building such an amazing platform and for listening to feedback from the community.

regards

Wallace

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Hi Wallace,

Thank you for taking the time to describe your project structure. I found it a very interesting read because many of the ideas you’ve described are very similar to the direction I’ve been taking over the last few years, although in my case the focus has been on Britain and Ireland (UK+).

Rather than creating individual stand-alone projects, I’ve gradually been building a connected network of projects designed to help people navigate biodiversity from different perspectives. Some are geographic (countries, regions, vice-counties and individual sites), while others are taxonomic, providing entry points into major groups of organisms.

One of the things that became clear quite early on was that, as the number of projects grows, discoverability becomes increasingly important. Creating projects is relatively straightforward; helping people find the right project is a much bigger challenge. Like you, I’ve tried to address that by creating logical links between projects and by maintaining consistent naming conventions, banners and icons so that users can immediately recognise how projects relate to one another.

The taxonomic side has grown into what I call the Natural History of Britain & Ireland Taxonomic Index, which now provides a structured way of navigating hundreds of taxonomic projects. In parallel, I’ve been developing geographic projects covering everything from national and regional scales down to individual nature reserves.

One design decision I made was to separate the geographic and taxonomic structures. This creates two complementary ways of exploring biodiversity: users can either start with a place and discover the species recorded there, or start with a taxonomic group and then explore where those organisms occur. That dual approach has worked well for the UK and Ireland.

I was also interested in your use of project descriptions as navigation pages. That’s an area I haven’t explored as fully as you have, and your ideas have certainly given me something to think about. Likewise, your comments about using Guides as thematic biodiversity pages rather than simply species lists are an interesting concept.

It’s encouraging to see that people working independently in different parts of the world are arriving at similar ideas about making iNaturalist easier to navigate. I think there’s considerable scope for sharing ideas on how project networks can help people explore biodiversity more effectively.

Thank you again for sharing your work, and I wish you every success as the Brazil network continues to develop.

Best wishes,

Steve McWilliam
Liverpool, UK

Natural History of Britain & Ireland – A Taxonomic Index - (UK+): · iNaturalist

Geographic Framework of Britain & Ireland – Vice Counties & Regions - (UK+): · iNaturalist

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I finally see someone else talking about guides…